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This Is The Samurai Film That Inspired Star Wars

What if Tarantino directed Star Wars with samurai swords instead of light sabers?

By Eric DovigiPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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Criterion Collection cover design

I like to tell people The Hidden Fortress is like if Quentin Tarantino directed Star Wars, and used samurai swords instead of light sabers.

The Idea

The idea is simple. Depict a great war. Two armies fighting to the death, hand to hand in the street, in great masses on the battlefield, good vs evil, blood, gore, politics, history. But instead of viewing the war from the point of view of a general or a prince, you start with… two bumbling idiots. Peripheral characters. Both utterly afraid of getting killed, they don’t want any part of the action, bicker constantly, and are decidedly unheroic.

Sound familiar?

This describes the central idea and opening scenes of Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (1958), but it could also describe the beginning of George Lucas’s space opera Star Wars (1977).

The similarities don’t end there. You’ve got two laconic, effortlessly cool warriors (Toshiro Mifune and Harrison Ford), two princesses in need of an escort through enemy territory (Misa Uehara and Carrie Fisher), a final medal-bestowing ceremony, and, of course, sword fights. Lots of sword fights.

George Lucas is a lover of film, and he’s not the first American to come away from a Kurosawa film inspired. Think, The Magnificent Seven, a remake of Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo, which became A Fistful of Dollars. Kurosawa’s lone, wandering ronin are the natural equivalents of cowboys. I would never argue that Star Wars constitutes a remake of The Hidden Fortress, but there are enough parallels to make the claim that Kurosawa’s film served as direct inspiration for Lucas.

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When released in 1958, The Hidden Fortress was considered by many critics (including the infamously hard-to-please Bosley Crowther) as a bit of a letdown. Not a bad piece of work in terms of technique, maybe, but a decided pot-boiler whose Hollywoodisms conflicted with Kurosawa’s status as a leader of serious Japanese cinema. In short, it was “mere” entertainment. Compared with the formal daring of Rashomon, the epic scale of Seven Samurai, or even the subtle sorrow of a film like Ikiru, The Hidden Fortress was Kurosawa’s most lighthearted film to date. Which may have had something to do with the fact that it was his biggest hit up til then.

It begins with a striking shot.

C3PO and R2D2 ...?

Widescreen. Handheld shot. Two bent backs in tattered clothes are stumbling away from the camera, which trots along behind them. We’re in a bare, blasted field. Mountains rise in the background. One withered tree looms to the right.

The two characters almost immediately start bickering. The tall one gives the little one a shove, exclaiming, “Get away from me! You smell like dead people,” to which the little one retorts, “Give it a rest! We both smell like dead people.”

We’ve immediately got some conflict here, and the central device that drives the film’s tone and even its plot is established. These two are obviously not friends. They didn’t start their adventure together. They fell into by chance, falling into a truce for the sake of protecting their skin. Being together is bad; being alone is worse.

Their arguing is funny. Portrayed by veteren actors (and Kurosawa regulars) Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara, much of the wit of the film derives from the abrupt changes in their dynamic. One moment they push each other away, vowing to never speak again. The next, they leap into each other’s arms in joy.

George Lucas himself claims to have found inspiration for C2PO and R2D2 in the two peasants from The Hidden Fortress.

I decided that would be a nice way to tell the Star Wars story. Take the two lowliest characters, as Kurosawa did, and tell the story from their point of view

These two bumbling peasants get themselves tangled up in matters far over their heads when they cross paths with the mysterious General Rokurota Makabe, who, after nearly executing them, takes an odd fancy to the pair and decides that they might be useful. The General, played by the quintessential badass Tishiro Mifune, is on a secret mission to relocate the princess of his clan to a safe-house in the wilderness (the titular fortress) along with her gold and some members of her household.

Han Solo and Princess Leia...?

Technique

One thing that The Hidden Fortress has on Star Wars is technique.

Don’t get me wrong, Star Wars is a well-wrought film (sweep-cuts notwithstanding). The gorgeous Tunisian exteriors, the masterful x-wing dogfights, the murky interior of the Mos Eisley cantina. The images are iconic. But George Lucas ain’t Akira Kurosawa. The Hidden Fortress, from start to finish, is the work of a visual master.

Take that first scene, with the introduction of the two main characters. They start out taking up about half the screen space. Their big sweaty backs are stumbling ahead. There’s a wide, empty terrain surrounding them, but we’re mostly looking at their backs. After they start arguing, they turn to face the camera. We see just how bedraggled they really are. Suddenly, something grabs their attention: a warrior from the battlefield they're trying to flee runs onscreen. For a brief moment, the two peasants think their number is us; the warrior is going to kill them. Then they realize that he himself is looking offscreen with fear. In the space of a few seconds, Kurosawa has zoomed the conflict out three degrees: first, the bickering couple; then the unnamed fear of camera; then, when this fear is neutralized, a greater fear, once again off camera. With each escalation, the camera zooms out, widening the scope of the adventure, and revealing more of the battlefield.

This is one of Kurosawa's favorite tricks. Make the viewer think the conflict is of one nature, then pull the rug out from under them to reveal that something else entirely is going on.

What Makes It Great?

Credit: "Star Wars Explained" You Tube channel

Kurosawa is a filmmaker who takes joy in the medium. He was working on films right up until the day he died, mostly blind, in his 90s. Idea after idea after idea, he and the writers he worked with had a penchant for coming up with great situations for films. The peasants who pool their money to hire down-on-their-luck samurai. The lone, wandering ronin who plays one clan off the other. An extortioner comes up with a plan to kidnap a CEO's son---but gets his driver's son instead. A murder happens in the woods, and the witnesses give conflicting accounts. These are just a few of Kurosawa's great ideas. But what makes The Hidden Fortress so great is that it doesn't really have a situation or scenario. It's simple adventure. It's a sandbox that Kurosawa lets himself play in.

The film it inspired is no different. What makes Star Wars so iconic—what makes us rewatch it again and again—is its pure, unbridled, unalloyed fun. Its exuberance. Its delight in itself. The very pot-boiler nature of it. All qualities that also make The Hidden Fortress a work of joy and adventure, and a film well, well worth the watch.

It's all your fault.

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About the Creator

Eric Dovigi

I am a writer and musician living in Arizona. I write about weird specific emotions I feel. I didn't like high school. I eat out too much. I stand 5'11" in basketball shoes.

Twitter: @DovigiEric

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